Opportunities for Students in Equity Research Studies
Development of Evidence for Equity
Evidence for Equity aims to develop a searchable online database of user-friendly summaries of systematic reviews, with assessment of whether they can be applied/extrapolated to disadvantaged populations. This huge, challenging and essential part is done on packages of self-related interventions. Would you like to contribute on developing a tool that could help public and policy-makers on taking the right decisions to reduce health inequities?
Do Psychometrics, Clinimetrics and Econometrics really differ in how one should evaluate 'what works' in reducing inequities in health, education, social policy and practice?
We are looking for students with an interest in development economics at any level who might be interested in helping and being a coauthor on a paper on the commonality/differences of methods used by development economists compared with the methods we use in clinical epidemiology.
We are working with some development economists in the context of systematic reviews of development within the Campbell Collaboration [http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/ ] and have set up an International Development Group that Peter Tugwell co-chairs with Howard White a development economist who was formerly with the World Bank.
Knowledge Translation methods
In the XXI century it is even more important to adapt to the new range of technologies available to explore the new possibilities and evaluate its implementation. Could we action the best information available to make a difference for patients with musculoskeletal conditions?
Testing methods of updating and priority setting
Priority setting is always and important (and controversial) issue. It is even more important in times of economic crisis. But, what is the best way for establishing priorities? How much it cost the different alternatives? What are the alternatives? Alongside, Cochrane reviews are world leaders because of the commitment to keep them up-to-date. But it is less clear when reviews should be updated and how to take a decision on when a review is out of date.
Impact of a Decision Aid application
Decision aids are a recognized tool for improving patient-health professional communication and improved shared decision making. New technologies bring new opportunities for better and faster dissemination of these tools, but also challenges on whether the spirit of the intervention can be kept or will be diluted or challenged by the new technologies. Designing and evaluating the impact of new applications for smartphones are other devices can allow a faster and more up-to-date use of these tools. The application of these with low literacy populations needs testing.
Podcast implementation evaluation
Podcast is a relatively cheap and powerful tool for dissemination. Production is relatively inexpensive, and its audio format allowed to be used in other settings that usually are not considered as education opportunities, like commuting or jogging. However, not so much it is known on what is the impact of this flexible tool on the context on continuous education. Rigorous evaluations are needed to see which role this complementary tool could have in knowledge translation dissemination.
For more information on these opportunities, please contact us!
Jennifer O'Neill: Jennifer.ONeill [at] uottawa.ca